The big sleep
THE world in winter: when the earth is cold and unforgiving, the days short and food scarce; when the mind of the animal is preoccupied by a single thought—survival. Some, such as the swallow, flee to warmer climes; some of the less fleet-of-wing enter a state of diapause or dormancy: the winter sleep of forgetting and sanctuary. Birds don’t do it, but ladybirds do, likewise the bumblebee, the painted lady butterfly, the grass snake, the frog and three of our mammals—the bat family (all 17 types of them), the hedgehog and the dormouse.
